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The Chandrachud Report

D. Ajay Jadeja

Fixing a match requires a great amount of homogeneity which is not to be found in a pronounced manner in our team. The team is composed of players from different parts of India and they have not much in common between them. It is not as if we are not friendly to each other but we do not know each other so intimately that on or two of us can take other players into confidence and fix a match. People watch the game of cricket for the thrill of its uncertainty. It is ironical that whoever does not do well is presumed to be bought over and it is as if the match is played by the bookies and not by us.

When you are included in the test team, you think only of your performance and not of money. Cricket is a religion in India and if the numerous spectators even suspect that a player takes bribe to play badly, they will boycott him and destroy his family socially.

A match can be fixed by getting at the star players in the team but even tail-enders have turned the fortunes of a game as happened in the match which was played on 10th October 1997 between Pak and South Africa.

Some figures are interesting. A great player like Gavaskar who scored 130 centuries in first class matches was out for a duck on 20 occasions. In his last match, Gavaskar needed only 4 runs to bid farewell with a century but he was out for 96. That is exactly what happened to Sir Don Bradman, the greatest of us all.

I believe that people bet on Cricket. But a player can make far more money by playing well and winning a match than by playing badly and loosing a match. In fact, if a player has some class he will bet to win so that he wins the bet and makes additional money because of his performance. Our style of living has changed significantly which leads to various guesses and allegations. People think that we must be making money by illegal ways since we live so well. They do not know that the tax people will not allow it to go unnoticed and that, we are paid handsomely as members of the team.

I do not think that in today's Indian team, there is any player who bets on the game. It is true that at one time friends used to have access to the player's enclosure and sometimes they used to speak on mobile phones. Now mobiles are not allowed after we leave our hotel. No friends are allowed in the player's enclosure, much less in the dressing room. The dressing room is an exclusive place meant for the use of players.

E. Sunil Gavaskar:

I was shocked, surprised and saddened to know of the allegation that some of our players are involved in betting on the game. I think that it is impossible to fix a match. In my fairly long experience, which has, fortunately, not ended with my retirement from the game, I have never known that any match was fixed. You cannot fix a match by buying over a couple of players. The fifth wicket partnership of Azhar and Jadeja of about 230 runs in the one day match at Sri Lanka was a fantastic performance.

Some people are firing shots in a dark room to hit someone. But there is no one in the room. So the shots only damage the room. That room is Indian cricket. To-day, it is a dark room because we are not in a winning streak. When we win, there are lights here, lights there and lights everywhre. I feel that the reason for the allegations of betting and match fixing are being made today because we are not good enough to win at the present moment for whatever reason. Any way,if Manoj Prabhakar had a story up his sleeve, he could have approached his captain, vice-captain, coach or team manager which he never did. I do not believe his story.

F.Kapil Dev :

In my entire career as a player, I was never approached by anyone for match fixing. I guess that there is large betting on cricket but, the evil of betting can be dealt with only by the police. Today there is so much cricket that there is so much betting also. Those who lose their bets are the first to blame the players for playing bad deliberately.

Fixing a match does not mean fixing all the players in the team. It is possible to approach a couple of star players and fix a match. A player can be approached only for playing badly because not even a Don Bradman or a Sunil Gavaskar could claim that he will score a century. A player can only promise that he will get out cheaply. But in my experience no match was fixed.

Many people try to get friendly with players to increase their own importance. They are the ones who circulate all kinds of stories. But it cannot be denied that they offer gifts to players. They also try to get information from the players on the basis of which, I guess, they may be laying bets. If they win, they would go back to the player and offer a gift saying that they have won a bet because of the information given to them.

I am of the opinion that the Board should set up a private agency to find out the assets of players. That will give some clue whether players lay bets or agree to fix matches.

G. Ajit Wadekar :

During my long term as a manager and even a longer term as a test player, I never suspected that any player was involved in betting. But, as a manager, I felt that the priorities of the players were all wrong. They attended too many parties and mixed with too many outsiders just to keep their own allowance intact. Their attention is not all focussed on the game of cricket. I therefore framed a code of conduct regarding dress, net practice, general discipline and the need to hold discussions. Thereafter, in England, we won 14 out of 21 matches, three were drawn and only 4 were lost during my managership. While I was a captain, we won 3 out of 4 series. At one stage, I wanted to relax the Code but the players themselves said no to it. They said the code is excellent and it works.

There is no betting by any Indian cricketer. It is out of question. They are so well paid that they do not need any more money.

Pass holders are not allowed to enter the players enclosure and certainly not the dressing room. Five passes are given to each player.The pass holder sits in a separate enclosure which is quite away from the players enclosure. Even the wives of players do not generally sit in the players' enclosure. It is untrue that passes are sold. Many times Kapil Dev and I have purchased tickets with our own money and have given them to friends as if they were free passes.

The episode of offer of Rs 25 lakhs narrated by Manoj Prabhakar has no foundation. In fact, I was the manager of the team at that time. But he did not tell me a word about it. Besides, it was raining for three days before the match and the match was never played. Even the replay was washed out.

These days players make a lot of money. People are probably not aware that Azhar has a contract of Rs 50 lakh with Pepsi. Sachin has a contract running into crores with WorldTel, Kumble has a contract of Rs 20 lakh, Siddhu has a contract of Rs 20 lakhs, Rahul Dravid has a contract of Rs 30 lakhs for the stickers of bills on his bat and so on. I believe that Azhar also has a contract with Reebok for Rs 40 lakhs. According to me, Azhar is basically a simple person but he is friendless. Some undesirable persons have invaded the cricket field and have ruined it by playing politics.

Regarding the tapping of phones by me, the original facts contained the word "tap" through mistake. I asked my secretary to correct it but he overlooked it and sent the fax.I did not tap the telephone of any player. Anyone with some common sense will agree that tapping the phones of 11 players is just impossible.

Finally, I would like to say that though the memebers of Indian team are not unfriendly to each other, very few of them are close and intimate. Differences in language, culture and food habits make the Indian team not easy to manage. Team with such diverse attitudes cannot be fixed by anyone.

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